Arizona's gun laws in need of scrutiny after killing spree

On Saturday, Gov. Jan Brewer stepped before the podium outside the old state Capitol to speak to a nation looking at us, and perhaps to us, for answers. Like every Arizonan, she was shaken. Like all of us, she was shocked and straining to understand how such horror could happen in our beloved state.

"(It is) an unbelievable tragedy that the people of Arizona experienced today," she said. "One of which, of course, in our worst nightmares we . . . never could have imagined would have taken place."

Couldn't we?

Today, Brewer will step before the podium and open the 2011 session of the Arizona Legislature.

A Legislature that has slashed funding for the seriously mentally ill. A Legislature that has loosened gun laws to the point that any nutball can legally walk around with a pistol in his pants.

We don't yet know what role, if any, the actions of the Legislature played in what happened on Saturday. But if ever there was a time to re-examine the cliff we are headed toward, this tragedy certainly provides it.

"We're the Tombstone of the United States of America," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said on Sunday and really, who could disagree.

The first bill filed for the legislative session that gets under way today is Senate Bill 2001, which would allow faculty members to pack heat on Arizona's college campuses, and to heck with what the police think about the idea. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, didn't return a call to talk about it in light of this weekend's events.

Much has been written the last two days about Jared Lee Loughner, who stands accused in the Saturday shooting rampage that left 14 injured and six dead, including a child there to meet Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

A child, for God's sake.

Loughner was a man so "obviously very disturbed," as one former classmate put it, that he was barred from his pre-algebra class and eventually from Pima Community College. He had five contacts with campus police beginning in February and in October, he was told not to return to campus until he had a mental evaluation showing he wasn't a danger to himself or others.

We don't know if Loughner got that evaluation. We have, in this country, an odd system that allows people who are crazy to decide if they need help.

There is a way to force them into treatment, but it appears from a check of Pima County Superior Court records that that didn't happen here.

Even if a judge had ordered him into treatment, he might not have gotten much help. The Legislature last year slashed funding for the seriously mentally ill.

The state no longer offers much in the way of treatment and support unless you qualify for AHCCCS.

Whether he wanted and was able to get private help, we do not know.

What we do know is that on Nov. 30, he was able to walk into a Tucson store and legally purchase a 9mm Glock semi-automatic handgun with a magazine that holds 31 bullets.

This, even though he'd posted anti-government rants on the internet that called into question his mental stability. This, even though he'd been suspended from school until he saw a psychiatrist and could prove that he wasn't dangerous.

Even if he hadn't been able to pass a federal background check, he could have purchased an Arizona-made gun and bypassed the check entirely, thanks to a law passed last year. And he had a legal right to conceal his gun as he headed to Safeway on Saturday morning, thanks to another.

Arizona is one of only three states that allows people 21 and older to carry a concealed weapon without any training or a background check. Brewer and the bill's sponsor, Sen. Russell Pearce, called it an important step in protecting the Second Amendment rights of Arizonans.

"If you want to carry concealed, and you have no criminal history, you are a good guy, you can do it," Pearce said in April, as Brewer signed the bill into law.